


Do I Love You?

by Blake



Series: Cole Porter 30-day challenge [2]
Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22369057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: The truth is she wishes she loved Frankie less.
Relationships: Frankie Bergstein/Grace Hanson
Series: Cole Porter 30-day challenge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610263
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

Frankie leans back and looks up at the sun with closed eyes, smiling that smug, cat-like way she does that Grace can never relate to, like she’s truly, deeply happy with life itself. She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth, and to Grace it sounds more like the ocean than the ocean itself does.

“Do you love me?” Frankie exhales like a wave breaking.

Grace hates the feeling of being caught in something, hates the physiological toll on her circulation system. She turns to look at the water for a second, and it reminds her that Frankie is probably talking to The Universe or something. She lets the question be and curls up on the side of her better knee, careful not to let her makeup smear across the chaise longue.

“Just so you’re aware, your silence is incriminating,” Frankie says _to her_ , because she is, in fact, asking her and not the universe. The bit about incrimination is just a joke, of course. Everything’s a joke to Frankie, whose idea of a good time is poking and prodding until Grace gives in and pinkie-promises that they’re bestest friends again.

“Do _I_ love you?” Grace studies the smooth skin stretched over Frankie’s bony face, and the soft, crepe-paper skin of her neck and sternum, which her fingertips have memorized from all the hundreds of times Frankie has, in one panic or another, brought Grace’s held-steady hands to feel for a faint pulse or irregular heartbeat. One time she did that, her skin was so sweaty it had Grace worried, but when Frankie’s heartbeat settled back to normal, she had told her she had just had a really intense orgasm from their vibrator. Grace had pulled away, shaking her hand because that was _sex_ , intimacy and fluids, that was holding your partner as they came down, and Frankie had laughed and laughed, because everything is a joke to her.

The truth is she wishes she loved Frankie less. Frankie is the only thing in the world that makes her feel anything close to truly, deeply happy with life. She has become the inexorable other half of Grace’s self, and the voice in her head that tells her to be kinder to herself. She’s the only person who inspires that unstable, explosive feeling in her chest that Grace quashed decades ago when she decided that men and money were her only practical option.

It’s pathetically, horribly obvious that Grace loves her in more ways and more deeply than she loves Grace. But Frankie, so infuriatingly childlike, thinks she wins this imaginary who-loves-who-more game because _her_ heart wouldn’t race incriminatingly and recklessly fast if she touched Grace’s post-orgasm sweat and therefore, she wouldn’t pull away and shake her hand out, and therefore, by some equation, Grace doesn’t love her as much. 

Grace sighs, letting her cheek dig into her own palm and smear her makeup into her salt-crusted hair. “Oh, only in a soulmates, star-crossed lovers, sell my soul for you kind of way,” she finally answers, hiding behind an ironic tone, as usual.

Frankie’s smile grows under the sun and she looks smug, like she thinks she’s heard something Grace didn’t want her to hear. “That’s just the weed talking,” she says sleepily, letting her head loll to one side, satisfied.

Grace’s hands curl in her hair and on her hip, wondering what it would feel like to kiss the bared strip of Frankie’s neck, feel that faint pulse with her lips, and make Frankie see all of her.


	2. From This Moment On

When Frankie kisses Grace and she kisses back, it’s pretty life-changing.

“Oh, this is great,” Frankie announces before sucking the lipstick right off of Grace’s lips, which plump up under her attentions. It’s really nice. “Really nice.” She smiles so hard she has to stop kissing.

Grace’s breath comes out fast, and Frankie can feel it against her wet lips. Her stomach drops low. It feels like kissing Sol, but several decades ago, when it was new and exciting and it felt real.

“I know,” Grace answers, sounding troubled, like she always does. She probably just needs more time.

So Frankie kisses her again, following on top as Grace rolls onto her back in her sternly made bed.

This, Frankie realizes, is true happiness. Her true life’s calling. She’s spent years convincing Grace to be friends, and to be less uptight. And here she is, convincing her that they belong together, skin together and lips together. From this moment on, life is going to be so much better.


End file.
